“We want to be successful; we want to be the best,” is one of the most common responses when leaders are asked about organization goals. But as I watch those organizations and individuals who are...Read more

One of the quickest ways to gain everyone’s focus is to say the word “trust” in any given situation: work, training, coaching – the workplace, community organization, or family. We know who we trust and...Read more

While the predicted tsunami of Baby Boomer retirements has not yet materialized, the fact remains that 42% of the workforce will become able to retire by 2017 and 70% within the next 10 years.1 The question for all organizations is how to best prepare for this significant change in leadership and management?

Many organizations look externally for candidates. But with intentional planning and preparation, new leaders and managers can be built through internal processes. The following outline of questions provides a foundation for creating such a process.

What are we trying to achieve?Every organization has a mission. It has linchpin positions or capacities that keep momentum moving toward fulfilling that mission. A linchpin is a special pin that is used to keep axles on vehicles. In organizations, a linchpin keeps the team functioning smoothly, delivering what is needed – with a great attitude. A linchpin manages operations efficiently. A linchpin looks to the future, translating plans into actions while remembering the lessons of the past. A linchpin knows that it is about relationships throughout the system. Can you state the mission; and, list the linchpin positions and what they achieve for your organization?

What does it mean to be an effective linchpin?Take your linchpin list and apply the “know-do-be” algorithm. Create a one-sentence statement of what makes someone effective in each linchpin position. For example:

Know skills that allow the person to manage people, processes, and technology.

Do behave in ways consistent with achieving results in building positive relationships, thinking strategically, and communicating well.

Be a person who is an athlete in self-awareness, practices trustworthy and authentic leadership, and has a calling to serve others.

What are the essential linchpin competencies?Now add a column to your list that gets specific about capacities and competencies that are necessary for success in each linchpin position. These should include knowledge and expertise, behavioral competencies, and critical success factors. Again, the examples are general; your list should be as specific as possible, limited by the needs of the linchpin.

Knowledge and expertise might include:

Possesses technical skills

Understands how to cultivate productive relationships

Communicates skills and values

Develops resources

Understands organization finances

Asks the right questions

Works across complex organization systems

Behavioral Competencies might include:

Self-managing

Exemplifies integrity

Resilient in uncertainty

Adapts to new environments

Builds trust

Manages strategic relationships

Influences others

Communicates confidently

Handles conflict resourcefully

Mentors and coaches others

Critical Success Factors might include

Committed to the organization’s values

Innovative and creative

Understands the financial impact of decisions

What actions need to be taken?Add a fourth column that lists names of persons in your organization who have high potential for leading and managing each linchpin position. For each person identified, create an action plan. Their plan should include opportunities to expand knowledge, grow behavioral competencies, and be given opportunities to act. Here are concrete ideas to use in systematically developing leaders and managers:

Job rotation

Special project assignments

Action learning: study and make recommendation on a significant issue

Individual coaching and feedback

Targeted training – online or in person – in operations and leadership

Opportunities for role transition – allowing them to serve temporarily in a linchpin capacity while someone is on vacation or leave.

What other actions will support this process?How will you communicate this information throughout your organization? Would a profile and checklist for each linchpin capacity allow everyone in the organization to understand the requirements and development path? How might you build this into your performance reviews? When and how will you start building your leadership pipeline?

There are many compelling reasons to begin building an actionable plan for developing future leaders. What first steps will you take to begin planning today?

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“We want to be successful; we want to be the best,” is one of the most common responses when leaders are asked about organization goals. But as I watch those organizations and individuals who are outwardly and apparently successful, I wonder, “Is that what we really want? Or do we want to inspire mastery?”

Success is a peak moment in time, captured in a photograph or by the plaque on the wall. It might be captured in Monday morning data, now the recent past. It may be celebrated for a night or a few days. It might even be noted on the local television station or newspaper. But success is not lasting.

Mastery focuses on what there is to learn, where the growing edge might be, and the discipline to continue moving forward. Mastery demands endurance and courage. It is not motivated by success or perfection – which have more to do with how others view us and what we do.

Mastery is not the same as success – which is only a moment in time. It is a constant pursuit of improvement, growth, and creativity. It is resilience in times of less than desirable outcomes and even outright failure.

Leaders can act to promote the pursuit of mastery over success:

Analyze Failure. Intermountain Healthcare, a system of 23 hospitals in Utah and Idaho, routinely analyzes physicians’ deviations from medical protocols. The goal is growth and improvement. Actively tracking and analyzing deviations and sharing the outcome data encourage physicians to buy into this program. The goal is to motivate people to move beyond the surface: “procedures weren’t followed,” to identifying critical thinking skills and understanding outcomes and results.1

Promote creativity. Mayo Clinic created the “queasy eagle” award honoring near, but abandoned wins. The goal was to create change and transformation after realizing that years of intolerance of failure stopped medical breakthroughs. In the 18 years prior to this award, Mayo had created only 36 new ideas for patient care in a particular field. In the year following, 245 new ideas were created, some of which are now patented.2

Build a learning culture. A learning culture is one where failures of all types, large and small, are reported, analyzed, and used as opportunities for discovery and growth. It is a culture where experiments are encouraged over and over again. Some leaders worry that being sympathetic to failure will lead to “anything goes.” In our complex world, failure is certain. It is our response to it that will dictate whether positive change and transformation emerge.

Creating an organizational culture that seeks mastery over success is not magic. It must be fought for every day in a disciplined, intentional way. It requires leadership, not management. If you lose this battle, you may lose the battle for talent and sustainability.

Mastery invests in people not just tools. It encourages risk rather than punishing failure. It rewards contribution not competition. It accepts responsibility rather than assigning blame. It thinks of span of influence, not span of control. It focuses on “what” is right instead of “who” is right.

A master does not know a subject perfectly, from end-to-end. An organization that seeks mastery will not be a perfect place to work. Those who seek mastery know that there is more that they don’t know that what they do know. The learning organization knows that there will always be more to learn.

Those who lead toward mastery know that courage is not the absence of fear. How do you define success?

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“Nothing can be done about that, it’s a government regulation. This is the way we’ve always done it. If we change the way we do that, something will go seriously wrong. We don’t have the money, people, or time to improve. We’re just stuck with the way things are.”

All of these statements have some truth in them. Variations of these stories exist in every government agency and private industry group. The stories involve excuses and blame. Excuses are made for not tackling challenges or taking accountability for needed improvement. Blame is assessed to others and external circumstances, blame that allows the status quo to live another day. They can all be examples of “learned helplessness.”

Learned helplessness can infect organizations and individuals. It was first studied in dogs that were subjected to shocks, and, when allowed to escape the shock, the animals chose to be passive and accept the shock. They had learned not to act and failed to notice the change in the environment that would have allowed a different outcome. Further research has shown that like their best friends, humans and organizations can exhibit the same behavior.

Employees feel hopeless in the face of bureaucracy and rules. They stop being creative and follow the same mind-numbing routine. Managers stop asking for what is needed and helpful because too often the answer has been, “We can’t.” Leaders are tired of pushing for change and more resources. Even when something is possible, they feel still feel helpless and hopeless.

Martin Seligman, researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, says that learning helplessness happens when people in an organization no longer believe they can act to make a difference. The result for the organization is a downward performance spiral followed by decreased communication and respect for others. People spend all of their energy trying to protect themselves.

Changing learned helplessness in an organization’s culture does not happen quickly. As leaders and managers behind the desk, it’s up to us to stick our heads up, recognize the assumptions of learned helplessness, look at what we can control, and open up the escape routes.

Start by recognizing the language and behavior of helplessness: “we can’t; we’ve always done it that way; remember, they didn’t replace that position; we don’t have the money; it’s the new regulation.” Then take action to overturn the collective helplessness … one step at a time.

Every time you hear or see learned helplessness showing up, ask, “What do we have control over? What one small action could you take that would make a difference for you or our team?” Ask the person or team to create a S-M-A-R-T experiment with you:

S – Safe. If things don’t go well, your team should be able to continue functioning.

M – Modest. This is a simple, first step out of the danger zone of learned helplessness; it is not a destination where everything is “fixed.”

A – Actionable. The team should be able to act quickly, determine what works and what doesn’t, make adjustments, and try again … all within a week or two.

R – Research. It should be an experiment that gathers information for future decisions, not an experiment with the goal of improvement.

T – Test. The experiment should deliver information that is beneficial for overcoming learned helplessness and offering hopefulness rather than becoming a new strategy.

An example: Imagine a scenario where an organization attempts to use online employee scheduling, starting in the year 2005. The effort repeatedly fails. The organization’s employees learned over time that the online scheduling environment is a failure. Ten years later, when management is presented with a new proposal for online scheduling, they may still resist the idea because of what they learned ten years ago. This reaction to the new proposal is an example of learned helplessness. It does not take into account the changed online environment where everything from smart phones to tablets to computers could allow access to scheduling. The change in environment has the potential to deliver success. The next step is to create a S-M-A-R-T experiment on a micro-scale to see what might be possible.

In the end, the question is not, “did we meet our goal?” The questions are, “how did this experiment move us away from being stuck? How did it change our assumptions about what is possible and what isn’t?”

See the culture of learned helplessness. Look for possible escape routes. See which ones are open. Then use them.

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One of the quickest ways to gain everyone’s focus is to say the word “trust” in any given situation: work, training, coaching – the workplace, community organization, or family. We know who we trust and want others to trust us. But we don’t spend much time thinking about how and why we trust others and how and why others trust us.

Have you ever extended trust and gotten burned? Distrust leads to anxiety, fear, and anger. These are associated with processes initiated by the amygdala – the “low road” of the brain. A judgment of distrust immediately sets up the fight – flight – freeze experience in a threat response.

How do you feel when you’ve extended trust and received trust in return? Neurological research suggests that trust is correlated with the presence of oxytocin. This hormone is associated with healthy personal connections demonstrated by reduced fear response and increased well-being. In a trusting environment of relationships, the high-level brain functions – critical analysis, logic, creative thinking, and verbal ability – are easily accessed.

From behind the desk as leaders and managers, we function every day in workplaces where there is never enough time to reach the end of the “to-do” list. We face an unending series of conflicting demands. We are forced to change priorities often, sometimes on the spot. We do not always have control over compensation or promotions. We try to be transparently honest, consistent in our actions, and caring about each person. Yet we wonder why at times people work with an air of resignation, with a lack of trust in our leaders and organizations.

Understanding trust in the workplace:Trust in the workplace is about vulnerability. In the workplace we are vulnerable in the areas of money, role, or promotions. And vulnerable to intangible things like beliefs, a way of doing things, status, or reputation. We are vulnerable to other’s actions. When we trust, we hope their actions will support and, at least, not harm us.

Trust is the focus of safety, autonomy, and human dignity. When we trust, our reactions include: I am safe. I can be open and curious. I can handle what is happening. I communicate freely, offer ideas, and expect the best. The opposites are true for distrust: I am in danger and under threat. I need to protect myself. I can’t handle this. I complain, withdraw, and expect the worst. I experience fear, anger, and resentment.

When we choose to trust we are making a complex decision. Stating that we trust someone is based on our judgment in four areas: integrity, intent, capabilities, and results.

Integrity has become a buzzword. It is invisible. But at its core, integrity is honesty: telling the truth and leaving the right impression. Other qualities that are a part of integrity are: congruence – acting consistently from our values, humility – putting others first while being more concerned about what is right rather than being right, and courage – doing the right thing even in the face of challenges.

Intent is part of our character. At its core is sincerity and motivation. To increase trust, intent must be visible. We communicate openly about what we are choosing to do and why we are acting. We communicate that our motivation is to act for the genuine benefit of others. We seek ways to create “enough” rather than function out of stress and scarcity.

Capabilities are more than the traditional “KSA” – knowledge, skills, and abilities. They include “TASKS:” Talents – natural gifts and strengths. Attitudes – our map of the world and how we behave. Skills – what we do well, specifically ones that are relevant to our work. Knowledge – learning, insight, and awareness. Style – our unique approaches to work, our personality.

Results represent our track record in taking responsibility for accomplishing goals and getting the right things done.

Managing trust in the workplace:Since trust is a complex decision, as leaders and managers we can begin to understand ourselves by asking, “How am I acting and communicating in ways that build trust in my integrity and sincerity? In my intent and care? In my capabilities and competence? In my results and reliability?”

We manage more successfully when we ask ourselves why we don’t trust someone before we begin having workplace conversations. What are we saying when we say that we don’t trust someone? Do we have issues with their integrity? Intentions? Capabilities? Or, results?

Then we begin the conversation with being specific about our concerns about what they have done, not focusing on what they are. Ask how they see the situation and listen carefully for issues of integrity, intent, capabilities, and results.

Ask what they would do to restore trust. State clearly what actions and attitudes you need to experience from them in order to restore trust. Close by asking how they will commit to act in a trustworthy way.

On the flip side, if we have broken trust, the only antidote is to acknowledge and apologize. Acknowledgement means recognizing the betrayal of trust from the other person’s perspective – even if it was unintentional on your part. Be specific about how trust was betrayed: by integrity, intent, capability, or result. And apologize: take responsibility and state your intent to act with good motives and care for everyone’s benefit and well-being. It always includes not repeating the action and acting to correct the problem at hand.

Practicing trust in the workplace:Observe your co-workers and begin to distinguish between different types of trust issues. Reflect on what others you trust are saying and doing that makes them trustworthy. Ask, “What do you entrust to others in the workplace? Why? What do your co-workers entrust to you? Why?”

Inspire trust by seeking to understand yourself and your own credibility, and then consistently behave in trust-building ways with other people. Consider how you can communicate so that others do not misunderstand you. Create and hold an intention to be trustworthy. An intention will bring clarity (why I’m doing this), meaning (why it’s important to me), and purpose (why this reflects my values) to everything that happens

Trust in the workplace takes an understanding how others judge trustworthiness, observing language and actions, and setting an intention to be a trusted leader, co-worker, and employee. Relationships based on mutual trust are the foundation for health in our companies, government, communities, and families.

What do you entrust to others in the workplace? Why? What do your co-workers entrust to you? Why?

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Thumbs up. Thumbs down. We are continually assessed, evaluated, rated, offered feedback. It began at home: do this, don’t do that, “No!” And continued from kindergarten: 300 assignments, papers, and tests per year of school. And in debates at work over which process works best, how to analyze the data flood, and where to spend the shrinking budget. And don’t forget performance reviews: hundreds of hours are spent preparing and engaging in that annual process.

Our entire lives we’ve received feedback: how to do it better, change, improve, and grow. Sometimes the feedback is immediately useful. But at other times it is off base, poorly delivered, or offered without understanding of our situation. Done badly, feedback can leave us angry, demoralized, and unappreciated.

Why is receiving feedback hard? How can we use challenging and even crazy-making feedback to gain insight and succeed?

Our first reaction after hearing feedback is to identify why it is wrong. And there is likely something wrong about all feedback: lack of understanding you, the situation, or even flat-out incorrect: Telling me to mentor people when that is your goal, not mine. Critiquing my new plan for training while forgetting that your plan doesn’t include an online component or even require electricity. Suggesting that 2+2=7. Once we’ve identified the mistake, we stop listening.

The challenge is to recognize our defensiveness and choose a different path.

Begin with identifying what is being offered. Feedback is a word that wears different masks. Are you being offered appreciation that encourages and motivates? Coaching that increases knowledge, skills, and abilities with an opportunity for growth? Or, it is evaluation that describes expectations and where you stand in relationship? Even when we’ve identified what is being offered, it can still be hard to understand and easy to dismiss.

Feedback often falls into one of three categories: helping you, helping the person offering feedback and your relationship, or helping the organization or team. Here are three strategies for moving beyond defensiveness and toward discovery for each category: identify your reaction, make the pitfall shift, listen, and ask follow-up questions.

Reaction: That’s not who I am! Or, that’s wrong!Pitfall shift: from You are wrong. to That statement is inaccurate.Listen for: information that I don’t have, the other person’s perspective, impacts that I am creating without being awareAsk: Do you have an example? What are you concerned about in this situation? How do my actions impact you or the organization?

Reaction: Really – after all my hard work? Or,you are the problem here, not me!Pitfall shift: from This is not my fault. to I can see my part; let’s look at the bigger picture because there a multiple things at play here.Listen for: what the system issues are, for the relationship issues, including what each person is contributing or not contributing to the issues.Ask: Help me understand what you are saying; then, I’d like to discuss how/when/why you are offering this feedback and my concerns. How do you experience me contributing to this issue; what is most upsetting to you?

Reaction: I always make mistakes and mess things up. I’m a failure, right?Pitfall shift: from I’m hopeless. to I’m surprised and would like time to think; could we meet later this afternoon or tomorrow to create a plan?Listen for: can I look for the coaching that is being offered and find an opportunity to grow, rather than focus on the judgment? How can I change the way I talk to myself so that I don’t automatically swing toward disliking myself?Ask: In your experience with others, what steps could I take that would help me improve and grow? What could I change that would matter most to you and the organization?

When receiving feedback, be your own champion. You don’t have to decide whether the feedback is fair or even correct. You don’t have to promise change. Practice understanding what kind of feedback you are being offered, identify your reaction, avoid the pitfall, listen, and ask good questions.

Attempt to use the feedback to create possibilities and generate options. Look for options that benefit you, the feedback giver, and the larger team or organization. Agree on the goal and the process for next steps, even if it is gathering additional information, inviting others into the conversation, looking for strategies for working around individual failures, preferences, or tempers, or simply taking two weeks to see how things develop. Be clear. Know where each person stands when the conversation ends.

Remember, feedback conversations are not one-time events. Most often they exist as part of an ongoing relationship, with multiple interactions over time. Understanding your own reaction, where you stand, and what the next step for you is will help both of you relate. In the end, you are the most important person. You are responsible for your reactions and for your willingness to learn and profit from feedback.

Our brains are amazing organs. Every time I automatically make a switch, my brain has to seek a stored memory and reaction, then re-route seeing, hearing, thinking, muscle action, and coordinate a response.

“See? I can multitask.” I want to believe that I am organized, quick, and efficient. I can do it all. But after years of multitasking, it is starting to sink in: I’m not multitasking – I’m “multiswitching.” The fact is, when I switch my attention, I become less organized, quick, and efficient. This is a hard lesson, one I didn’t want to believe in spite of a convincing, growing body of research: when we divide our attention we waste time and lower our work quality.

How did I learn this lesson? I sat in my reading chair one day and picked up a book. I’d been eagerly awaiting this book and had bought it in paper not as an e-book. I started reading. Less than three pages later I was answering a text message. Then my email “pinged,” and I was off to my desk. The next afternoon, I had to start over from the beginning. The same thing happened. I stared from my desk at my reading chair that is less than four feet away. Had I lost the ability to read a book? I looked at the pile of four books, all partly read. It was clear that the answer was, “Yes.”

I began an experiment. I set a timer for 10 minutes. Could I stay focused for 10 minutes on my book? I looked up many times, but I made it. 20 minutes? After several days, I found I could sit and read again, even become absorbed in my book.

I still “multiswitch” much of the time. But I continue to create experiments, working to regain my ability to focus on one person, one task, one thing at a time.

What experiment will you try to move beyond “multiswitching?”

*Image credit: Unknown creator, Shambhala Sun, May 2014

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One of the things I love to do is walk into a small bookstore with an uninterrupted hour at hand. I realize “love” isn’t usually used on an organization development blog, but I find my pulse quickening with anticipation when I discover a small, independent bookstore. I know an adventure is about to begin.

I love walking into a small bookstore. I observe the store lay out. I look at what’s kept closest to the check-out. I get a cup of coffee. And I listen. I listen to the kids playing in the children’s section, the clerk suggesting books, the three retirees rehearsing the morning’s golf game in the coffee shop, the baristas planning their evening escape.

And I read. I pick up random books, reading and browsing. There are some by local authors, fiction, history, photography. But the most exciting thing is encountering books by authors that don’t appear on my Barnes & Nobel or Amazon suggestion list. A random trip through the independent bookstore defeats the algorithm. Discovery begins.

I purchased two books: This is the Story of a Happy Marriage and Social: Why Our Brains are Wired to Connect.In the first, Ann Patchett gathers essays on life, relationship, work, and art. Her writing flows, and the essays kept me asking myself about my own choices. In the second, Matthew Lieberman asks who we are as individuals and what drives our behaviors in relationships. His use of a mix of stories, examples, and research was interesting, but his writing style is what kept me reading: “fairness tastes like chocolate; our trojan horse selves; business brain.” I asked what this means for me and the people in the organizations I encounter.

I recommend both books. And, more importantly, I recommend seeking out an adventure this weekend.

What will you discover?

The photo is of my longtime favorite independent bookstore: Page and Palette in Fairhope, Alabama.
And my favorite local independent bookstore is Watermark Books in Wichita, Kansas.

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Intuition is not a single way of knowing – it’s our ability to hold space for uncertainty and our willingness to trust the many ways we’ve developed knowledge and insight, including instant, experience, faith, and reason.

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Listening is a vital business skill. Listening can be the deciding factor between a cohesive or fractured team, profit or loss, or long or short job tenure. Bernard Ferrari’s book, Power Listening: Mastering the Most Critical Business Skill of All, offers an overview of this powerful skill.

We all know people who are poor listeners. We may even exhibit some of these characteristics ourselves depending on the situation. Practicing self-awareness can alert us to when these crop up in our conversations. Ferrari identifies six types:

Opinionator: listens only to confirm his beliefs, never doubts, can be intimidating or squelch others’ ideas

Perseverator: talks on-and-on to sharpen his point and support his bias, self-serving

Answer Person: offers an instant solution, seeks to impress with quickness and brilliance, needs to “save the day”

Pretender: is not interested because he has reached a decision or is distracted

Ferrari goes on to suggest habits that we can practice to improve listening skills:

Plan: know what you hope to accomplish in a conversation before you begin.

Stay focused: set aside distractors and set a goal of keeping a running summary of the important points, seeking the right question to clarify as needed.

Be respectful: act in good faith, with honesty. It can help to say so at the start, “Talking with you helps me think through our options and risks.”

Be quiet most of the time: use the 80/20 rule – speak only 20% of the time. Keep your mouth shut; ask good questions. (Note: if there are two good listeners, it should be a short and effective conversation!)

While this is not groundbreaking information, I appreciated the first third of the book as a summary of types of listeners and listening habits. The remainder discusses listening skills for decision-making, improving performance, sorting information, and steering conversations. Ferrari offers examples of effective questions and uses stories throughout to reinforce his points.

The book is well-organized and comes with an index, which I find particularly useful. A reader who is looking for a review of listening habits and questioning tips will find a good summary and thoughtful ideas presented here.

As an introvert, I find the “be quiet most of the time” habit the easiest to practice. The challenge I continue to work on is keeping the summary of important points in memory, which lessens the distraction of writing down everything someone says in conversation.

What is your easiest habit to practice? How would you challenge yourself to improve?

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Mastery requires endurance. Mastery, a word we don’t use often, is not the equivalent of what we might consider its cognate— perfectionism— an inhuman aim motivated by a concern with how others view us. Mastery is also not the same as success— an event-based victory based on a peak point, a punctuated moment in time. Mastery is not merely a commitment to a goal, but to a curved-line, constant pursuit.

– Sarah Lewis, from The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery